"What's going on!?"
"We have no idea, master. There have been no raised alarms, but most of them appear to be missing."
"How the fuck does that just happen!?"
Having woken up in the middle of the night to his guard captain making a fuzz, the slave merchant David didn't initially realise how fucked he was.
"What about the city guard? What the fuck do I pay them for if they can't show up at times like this!?"
David had grown way too comfortable relying on the city guard for his every want and security need, to the level where he didn't realise they had other obligations to fulfil.
"The city guard is dealing with a wide scale riot in the entertainment district near the gates, we-"
Right as the guard captain was going to recommend they evacuate it suddenly became hard for both him and his master to breathe as they both started coughing aggressively as their eyes teared up. Falling to the floor as someone kicked the door in, the last thing the guard captain saw was a man in a strange mask pointing something at him.
"HVT's neutralised, standby for clear contingency."
Reporting his updated state for Lisa, Tom walked past the dead guard as he pulled out his knife.
"Hey dipshit."
Stomping down hard on the slave merchant's leg, Tom made sure the merchant breathed in a lot more teargas by shattering his leg. Bending down next to the screaming slaver, Tom started slowly digging his knife into his gut.
"Sadly I don't have a lot of time with you. But don't worry, I'll make it memorable."
(I swear, why do I keep letting him get away with doing all the fun jobs?)
Wiping some of the blood off of her knife with her shirt, Lisa sheathed it before swapping magazines on her pistol and also putting it away as she undid the spell that hid her real ears and eyes.
"I'm here to help!"
Opening the cell door, Lisa was assaulted by the horrible smell of the slave holding prison before she ducked undearneth a cup flying at her.
"I said I'm here to help shitface!"
Turning up the anger a bit, Lisa successfully dissuaded the beastman child from throwing another piece of cutlery at her. The inside of the holding cell was filthy and occupied by 12 beastmen kids, one of which was apparently very adept at picking up things with her feet and throwing them at people. Before the beastmen threw something else at Lisa, one of her friends realised Lisa wasn't one of their captors.
"Wait! She's not a human!"
"What, but how?"
"I don't know, dummy, but look at her ears!"
While the beastkin realised Lisa wasn't hostile, it didn't help their confusion very much as there was no way an elf would go out of their way to help anyone, let alone this far into human territory.
"I serve the hunt- Or rather my teacher does, you'll meet the guy in a bit."
"A servant of the hunt?"
"Yeah, that's what he calls it, but he's a living saint of the Hunt… He doesn't like that title though."
While Tom still didn't seem to realise how large of a deal his status was, most demihumans and even some humans did so it quickly worked to convince the beastmen.
"Anyway, I'm here to free you guys, hold on while I cut you free…"
It was only when Lisa drew her knife that one of the beastmen remembered the particulars about the leather bindings that secured them to the wall.
"Wait! The bindings are engraved!"
"Yeah they are, but my teacher has already taken care of that."
Although she was supposed to radio for confirmation that Tom had taken care of the inscribed contracts which made the beastmen impossible to free unmolested, Lisa had already seen the magical glow of mana fade around the bindings, indicating that Tom had taken care of the contracts.
"Status on contingency?"
Deciding however that she needed to be sure, Lisa reached for her radio.
[Clear, regroup and stack at point Delta. Outer cordon compromised, at least 10 perps.]
(Shit.)
Lisa had known Tom enough that she could tell from how he sounded that he was smiling, and she had learned from experience that nothing good followed when he started smirking.
Freeing the first Beastmen girl closest to her, Lisa handed her the knife and set her to work as she herself got to work and ejected the magazine on her pistol.
"Permission to switch away from subsonics?"
[Denied, make do and get rotating, on the double. Exfil to the north, northeast.]
"Tch."
Hearing there was trouble incoming and she wasn't allowed to switch to the far more effective supersonic ammunition Lisa got her ass in action like Tom demanded.
"If you guys want to survive this, then stick close to me, but not too close. If you spot any enemies behind me, tap my shoulder and duck."
"R-right."
Seeing Lisa had changed gear and her expression had gone cold like one of her swordsmanship teachers back home, the leading beastmen girl didn't question her instructions as she felt Lisa would leave her behind if she slowed Lisa down.
"Hmm. This has to be some kind of tragic comedy."
Tracking the multiple opponents through his drone downlink, Tom felt a smirk creep up on his lips but didn't do anything about it for once. He couldn't help but smile, because after dying, getting transposed into another world with swords and magic he hadn't expected to see a proper 3 man entry stack, least of all used against him.
(What the fuck are these knights doing? It's like someone taught them to just go through the motions without actually bothering to explain anything… And this isn't Sh*ek 2, you don't use a crossbow like an AR.)
Of course there was no such thing as knights cosplaying entry specialists in plate armour wielding crossbows, because that would be highly impractical (just like using an actual large ass pepper mill to pepper spray a talking horse and a spanish cat), there was however a set of 12 human condemned slaves engraved with remote controlled mana formations.
("Oh look! A cat!" "Look out Sh*ek, he got a piece!")
While Tom was momentarily stuck in one of his insane delusions, he was still very much lucid and had already taken care of the first 3 man stack which tried to attack him using crossbows, it was only when the corpses started glowing he realised something was wrong.
"A VBIED!? are you fucking!?-"
"TOM! TOM!?"
As Lisa had just started guiding the slaves out of the mansion, the building was suddenly rocked by an explosion.
[Calm your tits, I'm fine. But that explosion must have drawn some attention; hence we're going to plan C2.]
Hearing Tom and judging by his tone that he was still smiling, Lisa calmed down a bit as she finally received permission to go switch over to supersonic ammunition that wouldn't have any trouble penetrating plate and chainmail armour.
"Transfer to plan C2 confirmed, how long until air cover?"
[First wave just launched, ETA: 120 seconds.]
Suppressing the ringing in his ears, Tom took a deep breath through his gas mask as he started checking for injuries.
(Okay, I stand corrected, this shit isn't Sh*ek 2, it's Arise…)
Finding only a single piece of fragmentation in his shin that he quickly pulled out, Tom recognised the only reason he could move around was because he had worn a gas mask when the explosion happened.
(Overpressure would have cooked my lungs without it… which was most likely the intent behind this little suicide attack.)
"Lisa, if any freaks engraved with runes charge you, put on your gasmask immediately."
[What?]
"Otherwise the overpressure will kill you."
"... Got it."
"Hmm? Who are you talking to, miss elver?"
Still guiding the beastkin while she was talking with Tom over the radio, Lisa didn't feel like explaining how a radio worked in detail, so she just answered quickly while tapping on the receiver a few times to keep Tom from bothering her.
"My teacher, cut the talking now and up the tempo. A lot of the city is bound to have heard that explosion."
Finally meeting back up with Tom at the outer wall of the mansion, Tom watched the freed slaves confusion at his race turn into amazement as he let out a tiny bit of his divine mana.
"We're eternally grateful for your assistance, living saint."
"The name is Tom, stick close to Lisa, I'll clear the way."
Not wanting to get bogged down before making a significant amount of distance, Tom delegated protection of the slaves to Lisa as he started canvassing the area from above.
"Move out, we need to avoid a few approaching patrols."
Travelling through the relatively unpopulated noble area, Tom, Lisa and the former slaves managed to avoid scouting guards, for the most part.
"Boo."
"Wha!-"
Shooting the lone guard from point blank range, Tom grabbed his collar to avoid him falling over and dragged him into the alley where he had been hiding.
"... Copycat."
"Nah, I've done that 300 years before you were even born, young grasshopper. Now go deal with the rest."
"Bitch."
"You know it."
Gesturing for Lisa to get going, Tom took over safeguarding the freed slaves for the time being.
(Sunrise is in 4 hours… We need to move faster.)
Glancing up at the overcast sky, all the fires set through the city by the ongoing riots created a bit of light, but the shadows were still large enough to hide inside. In a few hours that would change, and Tom would very much like to be outside of Deth when that happened.
"Hmm?~ That's a strange sound?"
Also staring up at the night sky, one of the beastkin with particularly large ears suddenly noticed a strange sound. It was a strange kind of buzz, like a massive insect, but not quite.
"Oh, that's quite a pair of ears you have there missy, but don't worry; what you hear is our backup."
Complementing the beastkin's fine hearing, Tom's free hand naturally found itself on top of her head as he checked on the status of the approaching Wasp's that the beastkin had picked up.
(First wave on station. Second, fourth and fifth are also making headway in spite of the wind… Then let's start creating a mess.)
Keying up his radio instead of using his neural implant out of habit, Tom's demure changed as he switched to his old world's language.
"Target designation G; roll strike package alpha on 2-2-3 hunter-killer, zero HVT's and primary targets with extreme prejudice."
[TARGET(S) ACQUIRED, ROLLING STRIGE PACKAGE ALPHA 2-2-3 HK; CONFIRM? (Y/N).]
"Roll it, schedule bravo and charlie for mop up of secondary targets; strike, swarm then vulture."
[BRAVO AND CHARLIE SCHEDULED FOR VULTURE OPERATIONS, TOO(S) AND TOC(S) UPLOADED TO LOCAL SWARM ARRAY; STRIKE AUTHORITY RELEASED TO SWARM NETWORK: BRAVO, CHARLIE.]
Giving the go ahead to strike, Tom sealed the fate of dozens of people without any deeper thought or consideration. Far above the city of Delth now spontaneously lit by pyres, the group of 20 Wasp drones designated strike package alpha received their final target authentication and went on the attack. Aided by two dedicated block 14 scouts and laser designators, the rest of the Wasp's equipped with various warheads cut power and folded in their wings as they started their silent attack run. Gliding through the air with spontaneous use of their propellers most of them simply fell out of the sky onto their targets; various guard stations and concentrations throughout the city without a sound. One second, the only thing heard in Delth was the shouting and screaming of the ongoing riot, next all was drowned out by countless synchronised explosions.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
"WHAT THE FUCK!?"
"MY ARM! WHERE THE FUCK IS MY ARM!?"
"HELP!"
Needless to say the first wave of attacks hit home and left countless guards dead or dying, but when a new group of guards entered the target area to search for survivors they too were targeted by drones from the bravo and charlie section.
"The Wasp's are doing good work… But we need to head to the safehouse."
Coming to an abrupt stop, Tom felt a headache mounting.
"... What's up?"
Hearing Tom turn serious for once, Lisa also came to a stop.
"At least… 400 hostiles incoming from the north. Even with all the Wasp's I have left I don't think I can scare them off."